Where Did All the Good Arabs Go?

I spent Sunday early afternoon at the Haganah Museum, near Independence Hall on Rothschild Blvd. It seems that nearly every museum in Tel Aviv, except for the art museums of course, has a military/War of Independence theme. Comparing the Haganah Museum with the Jabotinsky Institute, the two could seamlessly blend together in my mind. Both used a mixture of video, photography, historical artifacts, and “staged displays” (i.e. trying to set the mood with set pieces, dummies, etc.). Both had a rather somber interior color palette, very military in steel grays, dark greens, browns, blacks. The lighting too contributed to the solemn tone, with well-lit sections interspersed with greater swaths of shadow.

There was also a general feeling of hagiography, with these early military figures, units, and operations holding a hallowed place in Israel’s mythos. At the Haganah Museum, for example, not only is the former house of Eliyahu Golomb – one of its founders and first leader – incorporated into the physical body of the museum, but there is also a separate room (“shrine”) commemorating his contributions to the Israeli state. With its huge portrait of Golomb dominating the room as you enter, I had the feeling of meeting the Wizard of Oz!

I have no problem with the creation and perpetuation of a national narrative – it’s a necessary part of state-building, a kind of socio-political “glue.” But what strikes me is how simplistic and even paternalistic these narratives are. As much as they are meant to educate and inspire, they only succeed in flattening a country’s people into paper-doll caricatures – and how much more so its (perceived) enemies!

Being immersed in Israel’s national narrative has given me a glimpse at what US patriotism was probably like until the 1950s or so (and strands of it remain unchanged today). The story is so bland, so one-dimensional. There are the glorious “founding fathers” (Washington or Ben Gurion, Jefferson or Menachem Begin). There are the “bad guys (be they Indians, Arabs, or Brits). There are the brave citizens fighting the bad guys. And then there is the eventual, hard-won but never-really-doubted dénouement – the good guys triumph over the bad. Here, for instance, is a quote from one of the exhibits at the Haganah Museum:

“From July 1948 onward, the [Haganah was] continuously victorious over the enemy until the end of the war.”

The Enemy. To whom does this refer? All the Arabs of Palestine? What a terrible, dehumanizing way to refer to an entire people. Even if these people are your opponents, to brand them “the enemy” without qualification is really beyond the pale.

In Israel, what I’ve been struck by most is the militaristic nature of the national narrative, the centrality of the army to the national myth – even to the exclusion of other contributors like scientists, musicians and entrepreneurs. Those people and arenas are celebrated, of course, but not nearly as much as the military. To be fair, Israel does owe much of its existence and continued strength to the military, but there is such little – public at least – self-critique. Should I be surprised? Is there that much public self-criticism in America? In Washington DC, the best analogue to Tel Aviv, there are hundreds of national monuments and memorials to brave resistance fighters and national heroes. There is one Native American Museum. There is one official African American Museum. Interestingly, being in Israel and finding fault with the dominant Israeli narrative has made me much more self-critical of America’s and my own.

But back to Israel.

If Israel’s narrative/identity is dominated by the military, and the Palestinian narrative/identity is dominated by the 1948 Nakbah – where does this leave the two societies with respect to a cessation of hostilities? How can the conflict end when both nations define themselves by it? Israelis, of course, would argue that for them this is simply not the case. Look at the cities, the businesses, the schools and government and infrastructure they’ve built in only 60 years! And that’s true. But if you think about it, what was “Israeli” before 1948 and the “War of Independence”? And what was “Palestinian” before 1948 and the Nakbah? There were Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs. Not Israelis and Palestinians. That distinction and the crystallization of two peoples came as a consequence of that pivotal year.

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If I hadn’t spent so much time talking about the museum, I might have had a chance to tell you about Sunday afternoon/evening. I attended a very interesting event with Nir for my internship, all about Israeli philanthropy and social entrepreneurship. But that will have to wait for next entry I guess.